


A Little Help

by karaluvsketchup



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s08e21 The Great Escapist, Gen, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karaluvsketchup/pseuds/karaluvsketchup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean patches Cas up after finding him on the road at the end of The Great Escapist. Pretty much just some hurt/comfort fluff since they're probably going to skip over that part in canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Help

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 8x21, obviously. Destiel/Pre-Destiel if you squint. I'm pretty sure 20 other people have written slightly different versions of this same fic, but here's my version, so I hope you like it.

“A little help here?”

Sam and Dean exchange a look. No, they don’t know where Cas has been or what he’s been doing or if he’s on their side at the moment or they can trust him. Yes, this could be a trap. But it’s Cas so no, that doesn’t matter.

They both cross the short distance to Cas, Sam crouching down behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him, Dean going in front to get a good look at his wounds. His face is a little bashed up, but nothing serious, but when Dean moves on to Cas’s torso and sees the gaping hole in his stomach, he winces. If Cas was human, he probably wouldn’t be alive. “What the hell happened?”

“Naomi found me.”

“She did this to you?”

“No. Crowley.” Cas pants out.

“They’re working together?” There’s an edge of panic in Dean’s voice.

“No, Crowley, he... he took me from her.” Cas is on the edge of passing out. “He has the tablet. I escaped.” He closes his eyes, breathing heavily.

“Stay with me just for a minute, Cas.” Dean tells his friend, and Cas opens his eyes again. “What happened to your stomach? Why isn’t it healing itself?”

“Crowley has bullets... made from angel blade. Shot me. Reached in with his hand... to get the tablet.” He closes his eyes again, and this time Dean is pretty sure he’s unconscious. Which is totally reasonable - angel or no, it’s amazing that he managed to get away, to stay conscious this long, with that kind of injury.

Dean looks up at Sam. “Stay with him for a second, I’m getting the first aid kit.” Not that there’s much they can do for him out here, but Dean wants to at least get the wound covered before they move Cas. He runs to the car, grabs the kit out of the trunk, and runs back, kneeling next to Cas - Sam’s got him turned onto his back with his head on Sam’s knees - then fishes a bottle of sterile saline solution, some iodine, a few packages of gauze. He adds a few drops of the iodine to the saline and slowly pours it over Cas’s wound, then cleans as much of the blood off the skin around the wound as he can before covering it all with a large, absorbent bandage. He’ll need to do more once they get Cas back to the bunker, but at the moment it isn’t clear if Cas’s ability to heal his vessel is going to kick in in a few minutes or a few days or ever, so Dean has to worry about infection sooner rather than later. Cas squirms a bit during the process and Sam has to hold him still, but he doesn’t wake up all the way.

Once the bandage is taped securely in place, Sam and Dean carry Cas over to the car and lay him down on the back seat. They’re an hour out from the bunker, but Dean makes the drive in less than forty-five minutes, telling Sam to check on the angel every few minutes. Cas stays unconscious, but doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, so they take that as a good sign. When they finally get to the entrance to the bunker, Dean parks the car as close as he can to the top of the steps, and the two of them carefully carry Cas inside.

They go down the steps, through the main room and down a short hallway to the men of letters’ infirmary, which Sam and Dean had found when they first explored the place and had restocked in the first few weeks that they’d had the place. It wasn’t a hospital, but it was worlds better than patching people up in a sketchy hotel room with just a duffel bag full of medical supplies. There’s a couple of old fashioned hospital beds, one of which is all made up and ready with sheets just in case, as well as a gurney like you’d find in an ER, which they get Cas up onto. Dean slips Cas out of his trench coat and suit jacket, then figures that his white dress shirt is a lost cause and cuts it off.

They’ve got a few IV bags, and Dean’s a little hesitant to use one in case they get to a point where Sam’s going to need one, but judging by how bad Cas looks and how much blood there is on his clothes, it seems worthwhile. He hands the IV kit to Sam, since he’s always been better with needles, and a minute later Sam has a line going into Cas’s arm and a bag hooked on an IV stand.

“Now you go sit down before you fall down.” Dean tells his brother. Sam is smart enough not to argue for once, and sinks into a rolling stool next to the gurney.

As Dean’s getting things ready for some hunter-style surgery, Cas opens his eyes for the first time since he was lying in the road, and Sam calls Dean over.

“Hey Cas, how are you feeling?” Dean asks.

Cas winces. “Terrible.”

“I can give you some painkillers, but I don’t know if it’ll even work on you.” Dean grabs a dose and a half worth of the strongest pills he has, and helps Cas angle his head up enough to swallow them with a little bit of water. “You don’t have an exit wound, so it looks like I’m going to have to go in after that bullet.”

“No,” Cas half-whispers. “The bullet’s out.”

“How?”

“Dug it out. Killed an angel with it.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Cas, are you going to be able to heal this?”

Cas closes his eyes again, not going unconscious, but considering, then opens them again, saying “I will, once my grace has a chance to recover. I used up almost all the power I had left teleporting to where you found me.”

Dean nods, tries to smile reassuringly. “Well, I’ll just get to patched up to tide you over until then.” He gives Cas’s hand a squeeze before walking over to get his supplies. Cas white-knuckles his way through a more thorough cleaning than Dean had given him on the road before he fortunately passes out again just as Dean’s starting to stitch. Almost an hour later, he’s still out of it as Dean finally finishes closing up the abdominal wound and puts a fresh bandage over it.

He moves on to Cas’s face, which mostly needs the blood cleaned off and some disinfectant on a few scrapes, so he’s all sorted in a few minutes. When he’s done, he pulls a blanket over Cas and then tells Sam to go get some rest. Sam nods and sets off in the direction of his bedroom, leaving Dean alone with the resting angel.

Cas murmurs in his sleep, and Dean tries to make out what he’s saying before realizing that he’s speaking enochian. He squeezes Cas’s shoulder, and Cas relaxes, turning into the touch just slightly. “You just rest, Cas.” Dean says. “I’ll be right here.”


End file.
